LAWYER Samuel Alito became an associate justice in the Supreme Court on January 31, 2006.
He has conservative political leanings and is the 110th justice.
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Who appointed Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court?
The New Jersey native, born April 1, 1950, was nominated by the then president George W Bush on October 31, 2005.
The move was announced following the retirement of associate justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
Bush first nominated John G. Roberts to the vacancy, but when Chief Justice William Rehnquist died on September 3, Bush withdrew Roberts’s nomination to fill O’Connor’s seat and instead nominated Roberts to the Chief Justiceship.
Alito was unanimously rated “well qualified” to fill the Associate Justice post by the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary, which measures the professional qualifications of a nominee.
Alito’s confirmation hearing was held from January 9 to 13, 2006.
On January 24, his nomination was voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a 10–8 party line vote.
Democratic Senators characterized Alito as a hard-right conservative.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) formally opposed Alito’s nomination.
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Debate on the nomination began in the full Senate on January 25.
The Senate confirmed Alito to the Supreme Court on January 31 by a vote of 58–42.
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Which cases has Samuel Alito worked on for the Supreme Court?
Alito is considered “one of the most conservative justices on the Court,” according to an opinion piece in The New York Times in 2013.
While his voting record is conservative he has not always followed the opinion of his fellow conservative justices on the Court.
At times he has had a difference of opinion compared to other conservative justices, most notably Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
On February 1, 2006, in Alito’s first decision on the Supreme Court, he voted with the majority (6–3) to refuse Missouri’s request to vacate the stay of execution issued by the Eighth Circuit for death-row inmate Michael Taylor.
Gomez-Perez v Potter
The case cleared the way for federal workers who experience retaliation after filing age discrimination complaints to sue for damages.
Alito sided with the liberal bloc of the court, inferring protection against retaliation in the federal-sector provision of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act
Alito hit the headlines in November 2020 after he spoke out about the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking to the Federalist Society, Alito criticized what he called the “loss of individual liberties”, saying, “We have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive and prolonged as those experienced for most of 2020”, and calling the pandemic “a Constitutional stress test”.
Abortion
The issue of abortion has been a highly controversial issue for Alito.
On April 18, 2007, the Supreme Court handed down a decision ruling the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act constitutional.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the five-justice majority that Congress was within its power to generally ban the procedure, although the Court left open the door for as-applied challenges.
Kennedy said that the challenged statute was consistent with the Court’s prior decisions in Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and Stenberg v. Carhart.
Alito joined fully in the majority.
On May 2, 2022, a first draft of a majority opinion by Alito, seen by Politico, was revealed.
The opinion would overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
Free Speech
Alito has regularly dissented from other conservative justices on the issue of free speech.
In Snyder vs Phelps, which was connected to the Westboro Baptist Church members’ right to hold a protest at a military funeral.
Alito aired the sole dissenting opinion saying protesters “were sued under a very well-established tort that goes back to the 19th century, the intentional infliction of emotional, of severe emotional distress. And I thought that this tort constituted a reasonable exception to the First Amendment, but my colleagues disagreed about that.”
In the 2007 landmark case of Morse vs Frederick Alito joined Roberts’s majority decision that speech advocating drug use can be banned in public schools, but also warned that the ruling must be circumscribed so as not to interfere with political speech.
